


if the fates allow

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: tumblr prompts [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Fake Dating, First Kisses, drunk on eggnog, festive fic fest 2018, holiday parties, mistletoe kisses, slipping on the ice, stuck in a snowstorm, winter prompt drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-28 02:15:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17173937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: just a place to collect the tumblr prompt fills I shared over this holiday season. quick little ficlets, all under 2k words.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> fic sentencer starter: _"How exactly did Sweetpea get his nickname?" Betty asked._ from smokeythemajestic

“Hey Jug?” Betty calls from across the room. “Remind me which coworkers are the ones you actually want to hang out with tonight?”

From somewhere deep within their closet, Jughead ticks off the names of the (very short) list of fellow teachers he tolerates in the teachers’ lounge. He had surprised both Betty and himself by even taking the interview from Southside Middle School’s principal about starting after-school programs for the, quote unquote, at-risk kids, but they had toyed around with the idea of moving back home anyway, and Jughead couldn’t resist the allure of creating something to help kids like himself move beyond their circumstances.

He just hadn’t counted on how irritating small-town middle school teachers could be.

“We only want to be around Toni, Joaquin, and Sweet Pea. They’re the art teacher, math teacher, and history-slash-basketball-coach respectively.” After successfully finding a maroon-colored sweater that Betty would deem festive enough, he carries on the conversation from their bathroom, leaning against the sink while she puts something sparkly on her eyes.

“And how exactly did Sweet Pea the history teacher-slash-coach get that nickname?” Betty asks. “I thought you said he was the one who looks like he could snap you in half.”

Sweet Pea does look like he could easily crush Jughead into fine powder, which is why he deliberately avoided asking “Coach Williams” where the name came from. But after a few weeks of grumbling about shared annoyances at their place of employment, the two got along like, well, peas in a pod.

“Maybe if he drinks enough eggnog, you can ask him tonight, Betts.”

She giggles as she finishes with her lipstick and then pulls him down by the neck of his sweater to kiss her. The lipstick feels tacky on his mouth but Jughead ignores it and get carried away regardless, kissing her thoroughly enough to bow her back slightly.

With that move, something jingles close to Jughead’s face.

“Betty,” he says with all the severity he uses on his most unruly kids and glaring at the Christmas tree earrings he now knows make noise. “I told you I didn’t want to actually dress up for this.”

“They’re festive!” his wife whines. “And what does it matter? You’re not wearing the earrings!”

But Jughead knows her better than that. “Maybe not, but those absolutely came with a matching pin you were going to sneak onto my coat, didn’t they?”

“…Maybe.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic sentence starter from anonymous: _"Thank god you're okay, I was so worried", he said said frantically._

“Betts! Betty are you okay?”

Betty looks up, still reverberating from the shock of hitting the ground, _hard_ and ass-first. She and Jughead were walking home from school as always, Jughead taking the three block detour as always, and Betty pretending she didn’t know passing through Elm Street wasn’t actually a shortcut home for Jughead as always.

Each of them dancing, almost gracefully, around saying anything about those pesky little things called feelings.

Betty, too worried about how vulnerable it would be to put her heart on the line; Jughead, terrified he’s conflating Betty’s … _Betty-ness_  as something more. Prior to Betty slipping spectacularly on a patch of icy sidewalk, she was biting her tongue while they waited at a crosswalk and then noticed a smudge of ink on Jughead’s cheek.

“We’ve had another layout day casualty,” Betty had joked, reaching up to wipe it away with her thumb. Jughead had flinched so harshly at the warmth of her skin against his that Betty completely misread the situation as his disgust, or rejection, or something equally embarrassing that she dashed ahead during a break in the traffic.

Weather-inappropriate ankle boot met ice, and Betty met the ground.

If it weren’t so damn cold, Betty thinks, she would melt into the snow to speed along her escape from Jughead. Instead of getting up and continuing to run away from the embarrassment, she stares up at the snow falling from the gray sky. It’s calming, this silence.

And then she hears Jughead’s frantic voice growing closer.

As she struggles to get upright, hands slipping on more ice, Jughead crouches down to help her. “Shit, thank god you’re okay! That looked like it hurt, I was worried.”

“I’m fine,” she grumbles, mostly to herself. “Not that you care apparently.” It’s freezing and her tailbone is definitely bruised and Jughead Jones is simply far too close to her face for someone who just jumped away like she burned him, and she’s done with the entire thing.

Jughead gapes at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means…” Betty gasps an intake of breath and  _great_ , now she’s crying. “It means that you clearly can’t stand me touching you so I’ve been making a complete fool of myself thinking you might actually  _like_  me or want to date me and now my freaking  _ass is bruised_ because I ran away from the boy I like, like I’m twelve years old or someth—”

She doesn’t get to finish the tearful ramble because suddenly Jughead’s lips are hot against hers, the one warm spot in the cold air. Perhaps she’s hit her head in the fall and she’s hallucinating. Kissing Jughead is a  _very_ nice hallucination; his hands cradle her face while he kisses her with fervor, one thumb sweeping the loose strands from her ponytail out of her eyes. Even as they separate from each other, there’s barely a centimeter between them and Betty realizes she’s clutching at his hands on her.

“Betty Cooper, you are the stupidest smart person I know.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic sentence starter from loveleee: _“I’m not sure why you’d say that,” he says after a pause._

“I’m not sure why you’d say that,” he says after a pause.

“Oh, you’re not sure why I’d say that you definitely ate some of the cookies for the Vixens’ bake sale?” Betty raises an eyebrow at Jughead, pointing as ferociously as she can with a piping bag in her hand and flour dusted on her nose. “Jughead I’ve literally caught you red-lipped!”

Sheepish, Jughead swipes the back of his hand at his mouth. It comes away with a smear of bright red frosting and some glittery sprinkles, the ones Betty has used to emulate snow on her Santa hat cookies.

Three of which Jughead may or may not have snuck into his mouth while Betty was preoccupied on the phone with Veronica. There was mention of festive garb and choreography and he had tuned out, zeroed in on the tantalizing cookies on the cooling tray that Betty had just finished frosting.

“Guilty as charged?” he offers, two hands up in surrender. “But this is entirely on you, Betts! You can’t have me over while you’re baking and expect me to not eat some of the finished product, it would be an insult to the Jones name.”

Betty merely glares. The effect is still dampened by her disheveled baking appearance; Jughead thinks she just looks like a mildly put out elf—she is, after all, wearing a festive hat with elf ears stitched on the side. “You owe me three dollars, Jughead Jones!”

All he can do is smirk. He gently removes the piping bag weapon from her hands and tugs her toward where he’s leaning against the counter. “How about,” he reasons lightly, “I trade you one kiss for each cookie I stole?” He pecks number one onto her nose, disrupting the powder that he now realizes is sugar. “One.” She’s still pouting. “Two,” he counts, pressing his lips against a spot behind her jaw that he knows makes her weak in the knees.

“Unfair,” she whines as he sucks a little harder at the delicate skin.

“Three,” Jughead finishes before he pulls her closer to stamp the final kiss directly on her lips. Betty relaxes into it, letting him escalate it by opening her mouth and sighing as his tongue sweeps against her bottom lip.

They stay that way for a while, the cookies long forgotten.

After they break for air, Betty tries to level him with a look like she hadn’t just had her tongue in his mouth. “You still owe me three dollars, Jones.”

“Oh come on, Cooper. That last kiss was worth at  _least_ five.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic sentence starter from raptorlily: _Jughead’s expression was perfectly bored. “Am I supposed to be scared now?”_

Jughead’s expression was perfectly bored. “Am I supposed to be scared now?”

“Oh, of me?” Veronica asks. “No. You’re a jackass for not following the dress code, but that was to be expected. You should be scared of Betty’s wrath for not being festive enough.”

Veronica has a point there, Jughead supposes. The invitations to her Christmas party—printed on cardstock, with foil and glitter and everything—explicitly stated that festive cocktail attire was mandatory. Veronica, as the bar-setter, was in a gold sequined, form-fitting dress with snowflake earrings Jughead is sure are made of real diamonds and likely worth more than the entire Pembrooke’s mortgage. When Archie came to pick up Jughead, he was wearing a Veronica Lodge approved (and therefore likely hand-picked) forest green tuxedo with a red bowtie and matching scarf.

Conversely, Jughead is in his usual garb; though he was  _just_  apprehensive enough of the blowback from Veronica and Betty that he at least put on a pair of khakis and selected one of his nicer flannels. Even so, his suspenders are hanging around his waist, he’s wearing his beat-up Chucks and his beanie.

“Hey,” he says defensively. “My shoes are red and there’s some green in this flannel.”

Veronica arches an eyebrow at him. “That will not hold up in the Christmas court of the Queen Snowflake over there. Best of luck, you Scrooge.”

She had jerked her head in the direction of Betty across the room and Jughead felt his jaw drop. She did indeed look like winter royalty. Clad in a silver and blue dress (Jughead thinks the fabric might be called brocade, if he remembers conversations overheard in the student lounge correctly) and matching heels, her hair is falling in perfect ringlets and she’s wearing a delicate, intricate crown of sorts that’s made with twists of silvery, sparkly …something.

It’s sitting on her head much in the manner that his own beanie does on his, and it makes something burn bright in the pit of Jughead’s stomach.

Surely he’s reading too much into it. Just as he’s been reading too much into the way Betty leans close to him when they’re proofreading in the Blue & Gold or how he can feel her eyes on him a beat longer than is strictly needed after he’s made a terrible sarcastic comment in their booth at Pop’s. She’s just being Betty.

And she’s being festive.

…right?

The burning in his stomach churns to an anxious nausea when Betty catches sight of him and her eyes light up, so he beelines for the bar and asks for a soda. The ginger tastes too sharp and Jughead realizes too late, after taking a large gulp, that he’s been handed a goddamn ginger beer instead of good old ginger ale. Damn Veronica and her heavy-handed fanciness.

He drinks it anyway, hoping it will quell his nerves—or at the very least, the nausea over thinking that his feelings for Betty might actually be reciprocated and all of the terrifying implications of that.

“You’re not dressed up,” Jughead hears through the music, Betty’s voice tainted with a slight pout.

Turning slowly, he uses Veronica’s insult to his advantage. “ _Technically_ , Betts, I am. I’m dressed up as Scrooge.”

Betty’s pout is even more pronounced up close, accentuated by the berry color of her lipstick. It’s darker than her usual fare, which is making Jughead think all sorts of unholy thoughts about that color being smudged across his lips and neck.

“That’s cheating and you know it, Juggie.” The downturn of her lips sneak into a delicate smirk and Jughead thinks he could die right then and there. She looks amazing—not that she doesn’t always look incredible in her sweaters and ponytail and pale pink lipstick, but something about this get-up is almost ethereal.

Maybe he’s died and gone to heaven and Betty is his guardian angel. Stranger things have happened. It is Riverdale, after all.

Out all of the things he wants to say to her ( _You look beautiful, Do you want to dance, Have I been imagining things, I am so madly in love with you,_  or, most boldly,  _Oh hey there’s mistletoe hanging right over you_ ), Jughead stupidly chooses, “We match.” He lifts his gaze pointedly to the crown on her curls and Betty turns a brilliant shade of pink.

It might be Jughead’s favorite color on her.

And then, something shocking happens. Betty, still blushing furiously, reaches forward to snag at the loops of Jughead’s suspenders and pulls him closer. She glances up at the mistletoe above her head before whispering, “That might have been on purpose.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> christmas lyric prompt from theheavycrown: _“There’s no place like home for the holidays.” With a fake dating scenario!_

It starts as a punch drunk idea over 2am milkshakes at Pop’s. All the best ideas start at Pop’s, Betty had reasoned with herself. What could go wrong?

After a knockdown, drag-out argument with her now-ex-boyfriend the evening before winter break (“I will never be good enough for you, will I? Perfect Betty Cooper only has time for her precious newspaper and nothing else, not even her boyfriend.” “Excuse me for not wanting to go to nightly frat parties during hell week!”) Betty decided to drive through the night to Riverdale instead of waiting until the morning to bring home Adam like planned, just to put distance between herself and school and all its associated dramas.

But even as she had passes the signing that reads _The Town with Pep!_ Betty knew that her “anywhere but here” mentality didn’t include Riverdale. She doesn't want to answer her parents’ questions about classes or why Adam hadn’t come with her, or hear about how well Polly is doing in law school. What she wants was a really large glass of wine.

She settles for a milkshake.

“No place like home for the holidays, huh?” The sentiment is spoken with as much bitterness as Betty feels, and she has half a mind to spin on her stool to tell this guy to fuck right off and leave her alone before realization dawns on her.

“Jug?”

He’s a few seats down from her at the counter, laptop and a cup of coffee in front of him like no time has passed since high school. Except that it has; for him it’s evident in the upgraded laptop, the sharper cut of his jawbone, and more pronounced bags under his eyes, where it’s a loser ponytail, a slouchy sweater in a neutral gray, and the same rings of exhaustion under the eyes for Betty.

Betty gets up to hug him and Jughead, surprisingly, accepts it warmly. He was never one for physical affection, Betty remembers, and never denied her a hug, but always did so with stiff arms. “It’s so good to see you, Jug! You haven’t been back here for breaks much, have you?”

Even Betty catches herself on the verge of calling Riverdale home and course-corrects, since it feels so different after time spent away and on her own. He raises an eyebrow at her, but says nothing of it.

“Yeah, Fred wouldn’t take no for an answer, despite my best efforts.” Jughead doesn’t offer any context, so Betty doesn’t ask, and they catch up on the past three years over fries and more shakes.

2am brings with it Jughead’s peak night-owl manic energy and Betty’s over-exhausted giddiness, which is how they find themselves plotting to show up to Veronica’s “reunion” party together— _together,_ together. Betty spins some sort of logic about how Hal likely never would have picked up on Adam’s name to begin with and she can probably convince Alice that she dated Adam at the start of the semester, but she swears she mentioned Jughead’s name when talking about bringing her boyfriend home. Her face is pink as she finishes, realizing how absurd the idea sounds.

And then Jughead says yes.

And then it’s two weeks of suspicious looks from Alice and Veronica, bewildered questions from Archie, holding hands at Pop’s and in town, and Betty finding herself thoroughly enamored with this new world and wondering why she never thought of Jughead in this way earlier.

And then it’s Veronica’s Riverdale High reunion party and there’d been an under-the-mistletoe kiss to satisfy Veronica’s skepticism that had only escalated with Betty’s extra glass of wine for courage and ended with Jughead’s hand up Betty’s glittering skirt in the coat closet while they make out to the sound of muted Christmas carols.

Not bad for a 2am idea, Betty decides.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wintery prompt from bugheadotp: _we always carpool home for the holidays from college but a storm hit and now we’re taking the last room at the local b &b (bonus: bedsharing! we’re adults!)_

Jughead groans.

“Betts, come  _on_ , this is cruel and unusual punishment.”

Careful to only let her eyes leave the road for a moment, Betty turns to raise her eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry, what was it you said when you drove the first leg of this trip?  _I’m behind the wheel so I get music control_? And then you subjected to me Radiohead for two straight hours?”

He groans again and Betty giggles.

“I think you can survive a little bit of acapella Christmas carols, Juggie. It’ll be good for your inner Grinch.”

“Well,” wheedles Jughead. “If me and my inner Grinch apologize, could we listen to literally anything else?”

“Nope!” Betty pops her lip on the “p,” and continues to hum along to the music.

This is their pattern, squabbling over music choices for the entirety of the drive from the greater Albany area home to Riverdale. Jughead hadn’t said anything about applying to schools during their senior year at Riverdale High, but did eventually pulled Betty aside in the Blue & Gold office one day after she’d made her decision and chosen Skidmore College.

(“I, uh, I applied to a couple of SUNYs actually,” Jughead says, nervously rubbing at his neck. He’s not sure why exactly he’s telling her this. Or, he  _is_ , he’s just not sure why he’s saying it  _now_. Maybe it’s the reality that they could conceivably have their friendship survive college now they’ll be in the same area; maybe it’s because guaranteed proximity to Betty Cooper for the next four years makes him a little more confident in his feelings. “Albany looks like they’re giving me the best financial package, so I’m putting in all my paperwork this week.”

Betty’s excited shriek echoes in his ears. “Juggie! That’s amazing! And, oh my god, we’ll be so close to each other!”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. Like it wasn’t the first thing he thought of when he got the acceptance letter, after hearing Betty debate her choices for weeks and knowing she was leaning toward the central New York liberal arts school. Like he hadn’t let his overactive imagination fill with ideas of them getting a place together in the city after moving out of the dorms, that maybe college would give him the balls to say  _something_  and their place could be a one bedroom instead of two. “We’ll have to carpool, I guess.”)

It’s been the same ever since that first drive home, Jughead whining that Betty’s “party” playlist was too obnoxious to listen to for four hours. His initial surly comment had more to do with the fact that Betty had a party playlist at all and that she wouldn’t stop talking about her cute neighbor down the hall, but their music bickering remained a constant—even when the cute neighbor became a boyfriend, and then an ex-boyfriend, and Jughead still hadn’t taken Betty up on any of her offers to come out on the weekends with her.

This drive home feels different, somehow. Betty’s still listening to her obnoxious Christmas music, still telling Jughead about her roommate’s antics, but he can something is simmering below the surface. It likely has something to do with Jughead delivering Archie’s news that he and Veronica had finally split up; he knows Betty and Veronica had been drifting since graduation, but she seemed to take the fact that she found out about the break up from Jughead, instead of her supposed best friend, pretty hard.

“Not to fully Grinch out, Betty,” Jughead says, peering up at the sky above them. “But it looks like we’re driving straight into some snow. Should we pull over and check the weather?”

She nods her agreement and a few minutes later, pulls off an exit and turns down a road with signs for gas stations and lodging. By the time they’re parked, the Christmas album is over and the incoming snow had turned into current snow, falling faster than the windshield wipers can keep up with.

“Shit, shit,  _shit,_ ” cries Betty, slumping so her forehead falls over the tops of her hands on the steering wheel.

The uncharacteristic outburst catches Jughead off guard, so he leans over to rub her shoulder in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. “Hey, it’s okay. Even if we have to stop for a while, we’re not that far from Riverdale.”

When she speaks, Jughead realizes she’s choking back tears and his stomach plummets.

“If we get home later than planned, I won’t get to see Veronica at  _all_ this break. I haven’t talked to her in weeks and I think I’m losing my best friend, Juggie.” Suddenly, Betty isn’t holding the tears back anymore and is in fact, crying them into Jughead’s chest as she reaches over the console to burrow into his embrace.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t thrilled Betty is that close to him, willingly, but the circumstances are not ideal.

“I feel like everyone is leaving,” she sniffles. She’s not exactly wrong; Veronica’s mostly in Manhattan full time now, Betty’s parents are finalizing their divorce so Hal’s gone to Boston, Polly and Jason are moving out to some hippie town in California, and Archie’s next semester will be spent abroad in London.

“I know, Betts, I know.” Jughead holds her in the hug and toys with the ends of her ponytail as she breathes through it, trying desperately to not ruin the moment by drawing attention to the absolute nightmare of a storm blowing over their heads. He tries for levity instead. “It’s okay, you’ll always have me and my Radiohead albums to keep you company.”

There’s a snort of laughter. As he always does when he manages to make Betty Cooper smile, Jughead beams with pride.

He can feel Betty settling under his arms and prepares for her to withdraw. She does pull back, but not away. And then she does what Betty Cooper always does, and surprises him entirely. Her red-rimmed eyes look at him with an intensity Jughead can’t put a name to but suddenly doesn’t have the capacity to think about, because after the longest pause in the history of pauses, Betty surges forward and presses her lips to his.

After waiting for this to happen for so long, Jughead’s body catches on before his brain does, so his hands reach to draw her closer and he’s sighing into her mouth by the time the thought of  _Oh my god, I’m kissing Betty_  is fully formed. Not only that, but Betty is kissing him  _back_. Betty kissed him  _first_.

Betty’s mouth is moving heatedly against his and her hands are pulling at his shoulders and Jughead thinks maybe they crashed the car and he’s gone to heaven.

It’s not heaven, which he only realizes when a howl of wind rocks the car and Betty breaks away, startled. He’s half expecting her to look shocked, horrified even, and start one of her nervous rambles.

She doesn’t.

Over the wind, Jughead whispers, “What was that for?”

“For always being here.”

They hold hands, gripping tightly, as Betty drives the car at a snail’s pace to follow the road signs for a bed and breakfast. Jughead watches her as she leans close to the windshield and squints through the blur of snow, thinking that of all the times he’s looked at her, this might be the most beautiful she’s ever been. Because despite the terrible weather, despite the emotions that fueled her crying spell, she can’t stop smiling.

When she pulls into a tiny parking lot adjacent to an old Victorian, she’s still smiling. She’s smiling when she brings their joined hands to her mouth and kisses where their fingers are laced together. 

Jughead kisses her again and they’re both smiling too hard for it to be anything but an awkward clashing of mouths. 

Lugging backpacks and coats through the gusts of snow, through the front door, and up to the front desk where a petite older woman with a severe bun and reading glasses tells them she only has one room, Betty doesn’t stop smiling. 

“That’s fine,” she tells the woman. “One room is perfect.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> christmas lyric prompt from satelliteinasupernova: _drinking hot chocolate and "I really do believe in you"_

She gets the email in the middle of fourth period French, feeling her phone vibrate against her jeans pocket. Usually Betty adheres to Riverdale High’s strict no cellphones policy by keeping her own on silent, which is several steps ahead of the rest of the student body who truly can’t be bothered, but today she’s expecting—waiting for, praying for—that email. It stays on vibrate.

Their entire lunch group knows she’s waiting for it too, so Betty manages to hold off checking it during trig as well, wanting her friends to be her (hopefully celebratory) support system.

Juggie is to her left, Veronica to her right, with Kevin and Archie across the table. In a surprisingly uncharacteristic display of affection, Jughead’s put his hand on her knee to stop it from bouncing up and down. Betty is equally surprised at how much she blushes at the warmth of his palm through her jeans.

It stays there as she pulls out her phone, opens the email app, and presses open.

It squeezes extra hard at her intake of breath.

It rubs soothing circles as tears well up in her eyes.

“Oh,” Betty whispers. “I didn’t get in.”

Her friends all expel noises of shock, Veronica stating her father must know someone in admissions to shake down and Kevin beginning a tirade against the Ivy League system. Archie comes around to give her a bear hug and tell her, “Fuck ‘em. We all know you’ll get in everywhere else you apply.”

It’s Jughead’s hand on her leg that keeps her the most grounded. But it’s also the soft look on his face as leans close to her ear and murmurs, “You’re going to be okay, Betts,” that completely undoes her.

Gasping something about needing alone time to process, she wrenches herself away from the lunch table and flees.

This is… it’s heartbreaking, mortifying, and completely expected all at once, she thinks as she slumps against the Blue & Gold office door after locking it and letting the tears slide down her face. Columbia was something she wanted so badly and something she thought was a given, so naturally this is the universe’s way of laughing in her face. She should have known she wasn’t good enough, isn’t that what her parents are always telling her?

(“Work harder, Elizabeth,” “This isn’t a high enough GPA for Columbia, Elizabeth,” “Elizabeth if you’re going to insist on being on that godforsaken cheer team, you’d better at least show signs of losing some weight if you’re sacrificing time for studying.”)

She buries her head in her hands and cries.

The bell rings signally the end of lunch and, for the first time in her entire school career, Betty skips class.

What’s the point in going to chemistry if she can’t get into her top choice college, anyway.

About halfway through the period, there’s a knock on the door and Betty whips her head up in shock. Instead of someone from the main office coming to give her detention like she’s expecting, it’s Jughead’s face in the window pane. Betty inches herself from the floor in front of the door over to the floor by the desk and Jughead steps in slowly, a look of sympathy on his face that Betty wants to be mad at but can’t.

“Betty Cooper is skipping class?” he teases. “What has the world come to?”

Her expression must be morose enough to make him feel bad, because he changes tactics as he crouches to join her on the floor, handing her one of the two Pop’s to-go cups in his hand.

“We can be hooky partners in crime, I ran out to Pop’s get you some hot chocolate.”

“You didn’t have to do that, Juggie.” Betty could cry all over again; Jughead is, and always has been, kind to her in a way that doesn’t present itself to anybody else in their circle.

He shrugs. “I wanted coffee, it’s fine.”

Tentatively, he scooches in closer and loops an arm over her shoulder to pull her in for a hug. “I know it sucks, but there are other schools, Betts. And it’s only December. You should take a mental break from all the college shit over Christmas and then figure out where you want to apply for regular decision. I believe in you, Betty Cooper. Columbia can suck it.”

Betty chokes out a watery laugh and sips at her hot chocolate. Before she can question her impulse, she lays her head on Jughead’s shoulder and burrows into his hug. He freezes for a split second before relaxing into it and, inexplicably, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Her entire body feels like it’s on fire, in the best way.

Using her free hand as leverage, Betty gently pushes herself up to face Jughead. His expression is guarded, as though he’s realized he moved a step too far, but it melts into one of surprise when she leans in.

And then Betty Cooper is sitting on the floor of the newspaper office, kissing Jughead Jones until they’re both out of breath.

When they break, Jughead looks stunned and then grins at her before stamping one more quick kiss against her lips. At her questioning smile, he explains, “You taste like hot chocolate.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> christmas lyric prompt from soylent-greene: _“she’s been drinking too much eggnog” + festive sweater party_

Betty Cooper is drunk-with-a-capital-D.

It’s mostly Veronica’s fault, as any number of Betty’s drunken shenanigans are. Veronica and the Annual Lodge-Andrews Ugly Sweater Party and the goddamn Lodge family eggnog.

It could also  _technically_  have something to do with the fact Betty finds Archie’s hometown best friend both attractive and endearing—both almost infuriatingly so—and she’d wanted some liquid courage.

She’s met Jughead three times now; the first time was at Veronica and Archie’s engagement party in Riverdale, hosted by Archie’s amicably divorced parents, where Betty had found herself spellbound simply by his sarcastic running commentary the entire evening. The second was two mornings ago when Betty had barrelled through Veronica and Archie’s front door after spilling coffee on herself on the subway, cursing loudly while saying a silent thank you to the universe that her best friend lives two blocks away from her office.

“Archie!” she’d yelled, dropping her bag and coat to the floor and whipping her soaked blouse over her head. “Avert your eyes if you’re still here, I dumped coffee on a white shirt and need to steal a replacement from Ronnie because I have an editors’ meeting this morning!”

Jughead, originally asleep on their couch and therefore outside of Betty’s field of vision, had sat up blearily and sworn, causing Betty to shriek and fruitlessly try to hide the fact that she was only in a bra a few feet away from her best friend’s fiance’s best friend. There had been a lot of red-faced stammering on both ends and by the time Betty had taken a shirt from Veronica’s closet and gone back through the living room, Jughead had disappeared.

Their third interaction was at the start of this party, each going red when they locked eyes—Betty from still-lingering mortification and Jughead because his eyeline had  _started_  at Betty’s chest, the size of which was only enhanced by tight fit of the gingerbread-embroidered sweater Betty borrowed from her older, thinner sister. Jughead appears to be dealing with embarrassment by staying on the opposite side of the apartment from her at all times, whereas Betty turned to the eggnog.

The very strong eggnog.

The same very strong eggnog that has propelled Betty from her position on the couch and over to where Jughead is leaning against the kitchen island by himself.

“You didn’t dress up,” she tells him, as though he wasn’t aware of his own clothing choice, which was to wear a red flannel that Betty thinks highlights his broad shoulders very nicely.

“The shirt’s red, isn’t it,” he bites back, not looking up from his phone. Betty raises an eyebrow and waits for him to realize who’s talking to him. It takes a few beats and he starts to say, “Look if you’re just gonna stand there then— Oh,  _shit_.”  

Betty giggles. “Now your face is festively red, too.”

If she weren’t so drunk on eggnog, Betty’s face would be equally aflame. She’s not sure how you recover from accidentally stripping in front of a perfect stranger who’s going to be the best man to your maid of honor and therefore in your life a lot for the foreseeable future.

Drunk Betty seems to be sure, though.

“The only way for us to get over this is to even the score, Jughead.” When he looks at her, confused, Betty hooks a finger over the collar of his shirt and tugs to get her point across. And then undoes the top two buttons for him, just to crystal clear.  

If possible, Jughead goes even more red.

Betty waits, looking up at his bewildered, slightly panicked expression. “It’s only fair,” she says sweetly.

“I, uh,” he takes a large swig from the drink in his hand. “I think eye for an eye feels a little unbalanced still, since you being shirtless is more invasive than me just being shirtless.”

Maybe it’s the eggnog talking, but Betty thinks Jughead—embarrassed as he may be—is flirting with her.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Several, actually,” he grins.

Betty hopes at least a few of them involve shirts being removed. Preferably  _both_  of their shirts. Pants, too.


End file.
